


In Orbit

by Misadventurer



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Depression, Post-Tartaros Arc (Fairy Tail), Pradeshverse (Fairy Tail)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:09:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 7,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25082149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Misadventurer/pseuds/Misadventurer
Summary: When the guild disbands, Lucy is pushed into a dark place and only the Pradesh brothers can help get her out of it and discover that she doesn't need another person to help her shine.
Kudos: 58





	1. Introduction

**Author's Note:**

> This is a rough draft and I will probably be rewriting this later but for now I would love your feedback on the story and where you want to see it go. This is my first time writing fanfiction so please be nice.
> 
> Fairy Tail belongs to Hiro Mashima and The Pradesh Family belongs to Desna1.

Lucy Heartfilia had a life that followed a certain pattern. She would fall in love completely, devote herself entirely, and be consumed by another person. And then, she would lose them. Her world would crumble, her walls would be breached and her kingdom would fall into ruin. Her world was her mother, the first person she saw with her eyes, her first taste of food, the first sound she heard was her mother’s heartbeat, her laugh, and her tinkling voice. A voice which felt like wind through wind chimes on a hot summer day, a cool breeze on the sweat at the nape of your neck, it was a feeling of peace and relief.

  
Her mother was her whole world. She was the first person she saw every day, and the one to tuck her in at its end. She taught her to see not only shapes in the stars but creatures and stories woven through the night sky while lying on the damp grass, warm in a fuzzy blanket and her arms. She gave her a purpose and a magical world that only the two of them shared.

  
Her father was there too, on the periphery. He wasn’t cold or cruel, only distant and busy, but every once and a while he would orbit the sun of her mother and he was made brighter for it. Lucy didn’t mind because she knew that she and her mother were twin stars, orbiting around one another in a dance that would never end. Her mother would tell her that she was small now, but she burned brighter every day and one day she would outshine everyone. Lucy didn’t think it was possible for anyone to shine brighter than her mama but she hoped that one day she would be able to light up a room just like her.

  
Unfortunately, her mama never told her the other thing about stars. That the hotter and brighter they burn, the faster they flicker and fade. Lucy had to learn that lesson for herself when she was six years old, when she was sitting beside her mama as her light burnt out and there was only a black hole where she had been, where her last words were the crackling of a hot wind in the desert. There was no peace left for anyone in the house and little Lucy was left all alone, sputtering in the sky on her own, trying not to get sucked into the tear her mother had left.

  
But her father was never a star. He was always a planet and without her mama to keep him warm he turned cold and dark and she wasn’t big enough to keep him in orbit, to warm his heart. She lost her whole world that day.

  
. . .

  
When Lucy bumped into another star, after so many years alone in space, she was much bigger and brighter. But in comparison to him she was dwarfed. Natsu Dragneel burnt hotter and brighter than even her mother had and that both thrilled and terrified her. She found in him a new dance, or maybe less of a dance and more of a wild careening. Being with Natsu was like spinning in a circle with arms outstretched and fingers intertwined, spinning faster and faster with the centripetal force pulling harder and harder at you and trying to tear you away. But she clung on, harder than ever before, determined to protect this new dance, to keep him from burning up.

  
She always thought that she was the weaker one of the two, that her grip would be the one that faltered and she would be the one to tumble into oblivion, into the dark, but that wasn’t how things turned out. Her strength was fading, her steps faltering, the loss of someone immensely important weakening her greatly, but instead of some outside force tearing one of them away, he let go of her hands on purpose and left her to fall to the ground. And the ground was hard and a long way down. There were no other hands waiting to catch her, and the landing was shattering.


	2. Spinning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucy's life begins spinning out of control in the wake of Tartaros and the guilds' disbandment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fairy Tail belongs to Hiro Mashima and Bosco and the Pradesh family belong to Desna1. If you want some actually skilled writing and well thought out character arcs then I suggest reading their stories here or on ff.net.
> 
> Comments and feedback always welcome as long as they're constructive.

It had been five days since the guild disbanded and Lucy had watched her friends leave one by one. She was lucky if she got a tight-lipped smile and a reminder to “stay in touch” on their way out. But Lucy didn’t leave. She didn’t have anywhere else to go. This town, these people, this pile of rubble was her world and she couldn’t leave it. So she sat in the remains of the guildhall, her knee throbbing, and she drank as the fissure in her heart grew larger with each goodbye. She drank as if she were trying to make up for the liquid lost with the tears she shed. And then when there were no more tears to cry she drank like she was trying to bring back every person that she had lost.

The town was rebuilt around her but she hardly noticed. She set up camp in the rubble of the guildhall and only ventured out to buy more booze. There were a couple of times when villagers would come to salvage whatever materials they could from the guildhalls remains to repair their own homes but she scared them away ever time, snarling and spitting like an injured animal, and eventually, they just let it be. As she staggered down the street, smelling of alcohol and sweat, she giggled at the thought that it was actually a good thing her team weren’t here or all the money she had left would have already been spent on food, repairs and rent.

She drained the last few drops from her bottle and tossed it into the alley carelessly as she finally reached the liquor store. One good thing about living in magnolia was that they were good at repairing the damages caused by rowdy mages. She glanced down at her purse and squinted realizing it was getting unfortunately light. I guess it’s the cheap stuff from now on. She filled up a bag with a dozen bottles, paid the shopkeeper and then stumbled away with her prize.

She was trying to perform the rather difficult manoeuver of uncorking a bottle with her teeth and simultaneously keeping a grip on the bag when she staggered right into a firm and inconveniently placed chest dropping her entire stash on the ground and shattering everything, leaving nothing but the cork in her teeth. Lucy just stood there in shock for a few moments as her foggy brain struggled to process what had just happened. Her eyes were riveted to the heap of broken glass and soggy paper bag as the puddle of cheap gen spread out and soaked into the gaps between the cobblestones.

In that moment, it was just too much. The fissure in her heart finally spread too far and she couldn’t hear anything over the sound of her own ragged breathing and tearing in her chest as she swung a fist blindly. The satisfying crunch of bone and the rip of flesh wasn’t nearly enough to contend with the feeling of being torn in two but it was a start and with an animalistic cry she launched herself at the bastard in front of her who had ruined everything. She swung again and again, with her dirt-encrusted nails seeking arteries and even her teeth looking to rend flesh and muscle but every time she came up with nothing but air.

And then, a soft green glow, and the feeling of falling. Back and back, down a long dark hole until there was nothing left, not even the verdant light which had sent her tumbling. And that nothingness, that oblivion, was bliss.


	3. Caught

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Thunder Legion returns to magnolia after recovering from their injuries and is shocked by the devastation left behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will most likely be changing the rating and warnings for this story as it progresses. As you know this is a work in progress so as I write I will most likely make decisions (and then change those decisions that I just made because I must have been an idiot when I made them) that affect the overall rating of the story.

The Thunder Legion had been out of it since the fight against Tartaros, in a fugue state brought on by the particles that had poisoned them. They had all been in and out of consciousness for weeks, with Laxus having the worst of it, he hadn’t woken up until a month had come and gone. It had been devastating to wake up only to learn that the guild had been disbanded and that their nakama had already spread to the winds. But that pain had been nowhere near what they felt when Laxus finally woke up and it was their job to tell him what had happened. He had cried and raged and shorted out the power in the entire hospital (luckily they had a backup generator). Bickslow had known Laxus since he was a teenager and he could count the number of times he had seen him cry on one hand. This was worse than any of those and he understood why. Him and the rest of the Legion were all devastated but at least they had gotten to spend years and years with the guild, had been able to earn back everyone’s trust after Fantasia, and had really found a family in Fairy Tail. They all knew that the guild had forgiven Laxus a long time ago and the changes he had undergone in his time away had proven to everyone that he was a changed man, but Laxus himself had never believed that. He still thought that he had yet to prove himself to all of them and now it was looking like he’d never get the chance.

When Bickslow saw the reaction of his team leader, of his friend, he made a decision. That night he got on the communication lacrima with his father and older brother in Pelerno and started making arrangements. He knew it was a long shot that he would be accepted back into Bosco because of the Seith massacres which had plagued them and been the reason for his exile in the first place, but regardless of whether or not he was able to come home, he was determined to set his team up with a new life in White Sea. Laxus was already familiar with his family because he had spent some time rehabilitating after Fantasia at his father’s estate and he knew that his father would be able to help him cope with the loss of his family just as he had back then.

From the hospital, the plan was to head back to Magnolia and scavenge everything they could from their homes and the guildhall before Laxus and Freed would board an airship sent by Bickslow’s father and start towards Pelerno. Evergreen had already left to join Elfman and the rest of the Strauss siblings and Bickslow would stay behind until his father could negotiate his return and in the meantime, Bickslow planned on getting drunk off his ass. It had been bad enough seeing the carnage that had laid waste to the town, it was another thing entirely to have to sort through the dump for any of their stuff which had been thrown out with the collapse of their apartment buildings. Worst of all, however, was the guildhall. It was nothing but a pile of rubble and broken beams in the center of town, it even looked like a drifter of some sort had set up camp in its remains, and there was absolutely nothing there that could be salvaged.

Laxus hadn’t even been able to set foot in the remains of their guildhall, he’d completely frozen at the threshold, let out a sharp breath and turned on his heel, storming off back into the city. Freed had immediately chased after him, of course, leaving Bickslow alone, listening to the echoes of better times that now only existed in his memories, and silently weeping. After a few minutes, he’d managed to pull himself together with the promise of drowning his sorrows in cheap liquor and, hopefully, the warm body of a willing soul. He’d trudged through the uneven streets with his head down, trying not to think of how foreboding that moment in the ex-guildhall had been, a premonition of the lonely nights to come once his team had left for Bosco and he was all alone, waiting for word from his father that might never come.

The decidedly dark vortex his mind had become was why, when a soft and sour-smelling body collided with his, it wasn’t entirely their fault. It also explained why they were able to sucker punch him. He was surprised that they had managed to knock him back a few steps even, but he wasn’t about to let his melancholy earn him another punch and he easily dodged the next few attacks of his obviously drunk assailant. Despite the strong smell of alcohol coming off of them, however, there was power behind the attacks, and perhaps more frighteningly, actual bloodlust. It was as if something had broken inside of them and as Bickslow activated his figure eyes and took a peek at their soul he understood why.

Bickslow had seen cosplayer’s soul before. In the guild and during their fight on the rooftop. But as a rule, he tried not to peak. It was invasive and he knew that while people feared his ability to control souls, even steal them, it was his ability to see them which truly drove them away. Nobody liked to have their souls literally laid bare and so he tried not to put people in that position of vulnerability often. However, when he did take a peak, it was all too revealing. Cosplayer’s soul had always been absolutely beautiful. Like a prism of white light that shifted and refracted every colour imaginable. Not that cosplayer wasn’t strong, she was incredibly strong, but it hadn’t been the strength of her fists that had beaten him that day. It had been the sight of her soul. So beautiful and so pure, incorruptible. In that moment he knew that he would never forgive himself if he did anything to dampen that light.

He recognized her soul now. Still just as beautiful as ever, with the same shifting colours and lights as before, only now, there was a great chasm down its center. It bled and wept and pooled low in her belly, a soul-deep pain unlike any he had ever seen before. In that instant, he knew that he had to do something to help her. He looked into her eyes and within seconds she was knocked out cold, slumping forward and easily being caught up in his arms. He cradled her to his chest and summoned his babies to form a platform underneath him, carrying him up into the sky and out of the city.

This was his chance to really make amends, to do something right for once. This was his chance to make a difference in the world because he knew deep down that the world wasn’t done with Lucy Heartfilia.


	4. Smile Like a Scar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucy finds solace in the arms of the Raijinshu.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may have noticed some mild swearing in the last chapter... well there's more in this one! I don't know if that bothers you but I don't see any archive warnings for it so I'm going to assume that nobody cares.
> 
> As always, Fairy Tail belongs to Hiro Mashima and the Pradesh Family belongs to Desna1.

When Lucy woke up it was to a feeling of warmth and familiarity; a crackling campfire, the indistinct murmurs of conversation, and the pine sent of oncoming winter in the air. She smiled contentedly and sank further into her sleeping bag. She had been awakened from such dark depressing dreams, but she was with team Natsu now and everything was perfect. Once they got back from this mission she would have the hottest bath in the history of baths to wash off the grime of the road and then they would all gather at her house for a raucous meal. Natsu would eat his weight in fire chicken wings, Erza would eat her entire armour collections weight in pastries, and grey would sit there complaining about how hot the room was with the flame brain in it in nothing but his boxers.

Lucy spent a moment just basking in the feeling of home before her eyes snapped open. She couldn’t remember what mission they were on, or how she had gotten here, and those weren’t the voices of her teammates. She jumped up and grasped the whip at her hip, throwing open the flap of the unfamiliar tent she was in and preparing to jump whoever had the audacity to kidnap her (for the thousandth or so time).

. . .

“How the hell did Blondie get like this, Bix?” grunted Laxus from his seat in front of the fire, “She smells like piss and stale booze. What is she even still doing in Magnolia?”

“I don’t know, Boss,” replied the Seith mage as he ran a hand through his hair tiredly and stared forlornly into the flames he was stoking. “All I know is that her soul is in really rough shape.”

“But where’s her team?” asked Freed from where he was sitting sedately at Laxus’ side, trying not to look like he was leaning into him too much.

Bickslow looked back towards the tent where Cosplayer was still sleeping, noting that her soul was stirring and fluttering back to the forefront. He did what he could with his magic to keep her in a peaceful state for as long as he could. “I don’t know where they went but they obviously aren’t here. If they were then we would have a very overprotective dragon slayer and Titania on our hands by now.”

“It isn’t like them to leave anyone behind,” grunted Laxus, meeting Bix’s eyes over the fire, “They may be annoying as fuck but they’re some of the most loyal and clingy people Fairy Tail has… had.”

“I don’t think any one of us can really say that we’re the same people we were before Tartaros…” mumbled Freed. For once, not looking like he was pretending to ignore Laxus, as if his mind had genuinely drifted away from the lightning mage for the first time in a long time.

“But still, I–“ Laxus was cut off as the front of the tent burst open and a very pissed off (and finally sober) Lucy stood in front of them with her whip in hand.

. . .

“I am so not in the mood to be fucked with right now!” she shouted, “And if you think you can just waltz in here and–“

Lucy stood, frozen, as she finally registered exactly who it was that were seated around the fire. It was like all of the breath had been stolen from her lungs in an instant, leaving a hollow void in her chest. Only for the raging torrent to come flooding in to fill it moments later, as her knees gave out and pain in her soul finally bubbled to the surface, overflowing her eyes and falling to the ground in crystalline tears.

She couldn’t believe it. She had never been particularly close to the Thunder Legion, her world being completely consumed by Natsu and their team, but they were still her Nakama, they were still family and she hadn’t heard anything about them since they had been wheeled away to the hospital after Tartaros. The sobs that wracked her body were so strong that she lost her grip on her whip, her hands were shaking and it felt like she would burst right out of her skin. Then, suddenly, warm arms were surrounding her, her face was pressed into a solid chest, and her trembling and tears were shared with another. She looked up into the red-rimmed eyes of Bickslow and something incredible happened.

She smiled.

It wasn’t strong or bright, and it was jagged, more like a scar than a smile, but it was still there and through the tears, she saw it reflected on Bickslow’s face, and on the faces of the other Raijinshu behind him. In that moment, her pain no longer belonged to only her, it lay in the hearts of those around her as well, and for however long they remained, she wouldn’t have to bear it alone.


	5. Tall, Dark, and Handsome

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A mysterious stranger enters and Lucy is intrigued.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fairy Tail belongs to Hiro Mashima and the Pradesh Family belongs to Desna1.

It was decided that very night that Lucy would be joining Laxus and Freed on the ship to Bosco tomorrow morning. While she was asleep, Bix had made the arrangements with his dad and everything was ready to go. Lucy had gone back to her campsite to collect what little she had left and had passed out as soon as she returned, curled in a ball on her side and shivering in her sleeping bag. She has gotten so used to sleeping with the added heat of Natsu wrapped around her, that now without him she felt cold. She had been cold since that day really, in everything she did, and only alcohol had given her a feeling of warmth, no matter how fleeting or synthetic it may have been.

  
The next day, Laxus, Freed and Lucy were rushed onboard an airship by Bickslow and ushered into separate suites. It was an interceptor from the Boscan ambassador’s fleet, who just so happened to be Bickslow’s dad. That had been a shock to Lucy. Growing up she had heard all about him and his family, her and her mother had even attended his wife’s funeral in Perlerno but she had been too young to remember much of anything about the day. Still, the reminder of her mother was enough to send Lucy out of her room and looking for the bar. While her travelling companions were most likely passed out in their rooms after the early wakeup call by an overly cheerful Bickslow (which had earned him a zap from a grouchy dragon slayer), Lucy couldn’t sit still in the overly fancy room, feeling as though she would crawl out of her skin in there. While the opulence of the ship was refreshing after sleeping on the ground for over a month, all the fancy decorations and trimmings were too reminiscent of her father’s estate and so she tried to keep her head down while still keeping an eye out for the booze. However, she obviously wasn’t doing a great job because for the second time in as many days she slammed face first into a solid chest and fell on her ass.

  
There was a deep chuckle from above her as she sat there rubbing her forehead and cursing the world for a variety of reasons. That laugh caught her attention though. It was deep, like dark chocolate and velvet, but contained so much mischief in it that Lucy genuinely had to fight not to join in. Looking up a lithe body hugged by black leather, her eyes met ones the colour of red wine that twinkled in the light as Tall, Dark and Handsome held a tanned hand out to her.

“Sorry about that, gorgeous,” said TDH in a voice like sin incarnate, “I was looking for some friends of my brothers that are supposed to be on this ship. Have you seen them?”

Lucy grumbled but accepted the hand up as she rubbed her sore ass, “How the hell would I know?” she snapped, her pride and her rump still smarting.

“Fair point,” TDH chuckled good naturedly, “I’m Vander, by the way. I’m not technically supposed to be here but when I heard that blond curmudgeon was travelling on this ship I just couldn’t resist the urge to mess with him.”

“So you’re a stowaway then?” Lucy eyed him suspiciously and withdrew her hand. She had a feeling she knew the aforementioned curmudgeon but she wasn’t about to let on that she did in case this guy was trouble. Or actually, she knew this guy was trouble, everything about him screamed it but she wasn’t sure if it was the fun kind or not yet.

“Promise to keep my secret?” TDH said with a wink and a smirk that could turn an angel.

“I don’t make promises anymore,” Lucy replied, “but I suppose you could always buy my silence with a drink and some diverting conversation.”

“Deal,” gone was the seductive purr in his voice as his face was completely overtaken by a carefree joy. He slung an arm over her shoulder and started steering her in the opposite direction she had been going, “So gorgeous, do you have a name?”

“Of course,” said Lucy, getting comfortable in her new role as drinking buddy and potentially spy if it turned out his intentions weren’t good, “But I prefer gorgeous.”

Vander chuckled again at that, “A woman who knows what she likes, I didn’t think Fiore had many of those.” And there was the flirt again.

They rounded the corner and came across an equally opulent bar as the rest of the ship and Lucy couldn’t help but groan. Vander side eyed her and she figured she might as well explain, “I really hate all this fancy shit,” she said.

Vander looked around as if just noticing their surroundings for the first time, “Hmm, it’s not really my thing either but it’s all part of the package with an ambassador’s ship, isn’t it? It’s gotta look the part.”

“So you knowingly snuck onboard an ambassador’s ship?” Lucy asked with a hint of incredulity in her voice, “You’re either incredibly ballsy or incredibly stupid.”

“Why can’t I be a bit of both?” he asked as he guided her over to a gold and velvet barstool and sat down next to her, hailing the bartended who just shook his head in exasperation and started making some sort of complicated cocktail.

“So you’re a regular here then?”

“Occasionally,” there was that smirk again, “but Sam also works at a bar near my apartment, and it doesn’t get much better than his drinks.”

Lucy briefly thought of Mirajane with a pang and her delicious strawberry smoothies before she shoved the thought away and focused on her newfound drinking buddy who got more and more interesting by the second, “So what do you do when you aren’t befriending bartenders and sneaking aboard ambassador’s boats?”

Vander leaned in close like he was sharing a secret, “Oh all sorts of wicked things,” there was that sinful twinkle in his eye again, “I’d love to share them with you sometime.”

Lucy was about to reply when a rather green looking Laxus stumbled into the bar with a frantic Freed on his heels, “What are you doing here, Vander!?” he thundered, before letting out a rather wet sounding burp.

Vander leaned back and batted his eyelashes at the clearly miserable Lightning dragon slayer, “Why Laxy-kins, when I heard you were coming to Pelerno I simply couldn’t keep myself away from you!” He waggled his eyebrows comically, “You know I can’t get enough of that lightning of yours.”

Lucy blinked as a shock from Laxus made the dim lights in the bar burst and her hair stand on end. But instead of the pained yelp she had expected to hear coming from beside her (judging by the big Blonde’s thunderous expression), there was only a low whistle coming from the doorway, “Oh Laxy-loo, you’re going to have to be faster than that to catch me and I think that’s a bit beyond you in your current… condition.”

Lucy took a sip of the (admittedly yummy) drink that Sam had placed in front of her, and decided to lean back and enjoy the show.

“Why you little–“ Laxus lunged forward and immediately regretted it as the ship rumbled with turbulence and he was sent gagging as Freed desperately fanned him with a handkerchief (which had seemingly materialized in his hand) and tried to get him to calm down.

Meanwhile, Vander was watching the unfolding seen with mirth equal to Lucy’s own as he met her eyes over the retching blonde, “It was a pleasure diverting you, gorgeous, but I think it would be best for Sam’s business if I left before the curmudgeon unloads his lunch on the carpet.” Then, with a wink, he melted into the shadows and was gone, leaving Lucy wondering just what the hell had happened.


	6. A Place to Rebuild

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucy has a rough trip to Bosco, but finds new allies along the way, some she isn't even aware she's gained.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that this is in the tags but warnings for this chapter especially about depression and alcohol abuse. Lucy isn't in a good place guys, and it's gonna take more than Vander's charms to get her out of it.
> 
> As always, Fairy Tail belongs to Hiro Mashima and the Pradesh Family belongs to Desna1.

Freed stood over Laxus as he vomited a truly shocking mount into the potted plant near the door, Lucy finished her drink… and then another… and another. She drank enough to get a dragon slayer drunk and make her mind pleasantly empty. With the room swaying around her and Laxus safely ensconced in his suite, Lucy stumbled back to her own and collapsed face first on her bed. Before the guild had broken up she hadn’t been a big fan of drinking. After one rather unfortunate Christmas party where she made the fatal mistake of entering into a drinking game with Cana which left her waking up in Max’s bed, Lucy had pretty much sworn off drinking. It wasn’t like it was Lucy’s first one night stand, but it was her first drunk one and waking up not knowing exactly what had happened the previous night was not something she was looking to repeat.

  
Lucy rolled over with a groan and sighed as the room spun dizzyingly behind her eyelids. That was something that a lot of people got wrong about her. Everyone at Fairy Tail had pretty much assumed that she was a virgin, which she had been for quite a while, to be fair. However, one of the first things she had done after running away from her father’s estate was to get a birth control lacrima implanted so that she could finally freely explore her sexuality. She had dated a couple of guys on and off in the few months before joining Fairy Tail but once she joined her love life had pretty much dried up with her overprotective team and the possessive dragon slayer with an acute sense of smell that was her best friend. She still had fun but only when her team were otherwise occupied for the night. That, at least, was something she wouldn’t miss about Fairy Tail. And hey, maybe if TDH popped back in she would have her fun with him.

  
Lucy’s train of thought was travelling down some very naughty tunnels when her stomach lurched and she had to dry heave over the side of her bed. On second thought, that’ll have to wait until I’m at least semi-sober again, she thought. She pulled a trash can over to her beside and kicked her way out of her clothes before collapsing back in bed and falling asleep with her head hanging over the side. That night her mind was pleasantly blank, with only dreams of a tall, dark stranger to keep her warm.

  
. . .

  
The next few days followed a similar pattern to the first, unfortunately minus the visit from TDH (she had decided to call him that rather than Vander as the name suited him much better in her drunken stupor). She would wake up hung over and beat it back with several bloody mary’s before heading back to her room to sleep and wake up just buzzed enough to need a top up in the evening.

  
On the last day of their trip, however, she only had a couple of drinks as she knew they would be disembarking by midday and she wanted to at least look semi-presentable from Arman Pradesh, whom she still admired for his work even if her life had fallen to complete crap. Lucy even went so far as to have a long bath and get changed into the fresh clothes that had been provided for her, and which she had previously ignored. As she tugged on the cut-off halter top and flowy harem pants she remarked that this was probably the first time she had actually bothered to wear fresh clothes since the disbandment. That depressing thought almost had her reaching for the bottle of Boscan wine on her dresser that she had snagged from Sam, but she managed to control herself, still tucking it into her messenger bag for later.

  
Honestly, Lucy didn’t even know what she was doing here. She had really just been going through the motions for a while, not thinking further ahead than her next booze run. When Bickslow had said that she would be going to Bosco with Laxus and Freed, she hadn’t questioned it. Why should she? She was miserable in Magnolia, she didn’t see why she couldn’t still wallow in Palerno. Now, however, she was starting to feel nervous. She was going to be in a foreign country that she hadn’t visited since she was a small child, and she honestly didn’t know what she was supposed to do in Bosco. She wasn’t about to mooch off of Bickslow’s family, but she didn’t see how she would be able to get a place to stay or pay for anything without working, and how was she supposed to work without any papers to back up the fact that she was supposed to be there.

  
As Lucy despaired over the future for the first time in weeks, the ship started its descent into port and her stomach lurched at the uncomfortable feeling, like falling in slow motion. She shakily made her way out onto the deck where they had first boarded and joined Freed and a very green Laxus who was bent over the rail. She stood silently beside them and felt her nerves creeping up her throat like bile, she may just have to join Laxus over the railing if she couldn’t get a hold of herself. She was just reaching for the bottle in her bag with shaking hands when a lithe pale hand gripped hers tenderly. She looked up and met Freed’s kind eyes and once again had to fight back tears. He nodded to her once, as if to say, ‘it’ll all work out,’ and she smiled at him gratefully. At least she wasn’t completely alone in a strange land. She may not have gotten to know the Raijinshu very well but she had seen how loyal they were to one another, and to Fairy Tail too after the whole fantasia incident, and she could tell that they had accepted her into their inner circle. Fairy Tail might be gone, but they were still here and they wouldn’t let her fall.

  
. . .

  
From the shadows of the ship, crimson eyes watched the seen unfolding on deck with a mixture of curiosity and sadness. What could have happened to this bright, loving girl to make her so broken? Vander was beginning to understand why Bickslow had made such hasty last minute arrangements to get her on board with his teammates. She clearly needed a place to heal and rebuild herself, and seeing this, Vander was determined to make sure that she got just that.


	7. Bleeding Hearts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arman and Lucy are reintroduced and form a connection born from mutual loss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fairy Tail belongs to Hiro Mashima and the Pradesh Family belongs to Desna1, I'm only borrowing them.

Arman Pradesh was a man that had achieved much in his life. He had lost much and gained even more. While he had lost his wife and second son, he had lived on to fulfill the dream of his wife and him. He had started a large family, adopting six children and giving them a loving home and a bright future. Even with all of the happiness in his life, however, he was not a stranger to grief. Grief for the son and wife he had lost, grief for Bickslow who had been forced to leave home so early because of the actions of others, grief for Emzadi and the loves she had lost to her dragon slayer nature, and grief for Vander and the pain he could see in him when no one was looking. His heart was so big and so kind and full of so much love for so many that he physically felt their pain. It was what made him so good at his job as an ambassador and he wouldn’t trade his empathy for the world, nor would he trade his beautiful children for anything. His only regret was that he could not fix everything for them, and that as they got older, there was less and less that he could do to truly help them.

Arman Pradesh was no stranger to pain and so, when he saw the beaten down mages walking down the gangplank of his finest ship, he recognized in them a pain which he had felt acutely. The pain of loss. And in no one was it more prominent than in the young blond woman who he instantly recognised as Lucy Heartfilia. He had met her briefly as a little girl, but he had been so preoccupied with his own grief at the time that he had not truly remembered any important details about her. Thusly it wasn’t from their short meeting that he recognised her, rather it was from his memories of her mother, and his wife, of all the best celestial mages he had met in his life. The truly good ones, the ones that became the most powerful and rose to the highest heights were always the most loving people in this world. They were able to give of themselves so completely and form such strong bonds with the people and spirits in their lives that it was breathtaking. Their strength was their capacity for love and he could tell that this mage had an incredible capacity for it.

However, this ability came at a price. When you give so much of yourself to another person, true, it makes your bonds that much stronger, but it also means that their loss hurts all the more because you lose a piece of yourself along with them and you never fully recover it. He had lost a piece of himself the day he lost Ganier and Zen and that hole still existed in his chest to this day. In Lucy, Arman saw a girl that was full of holes, whose heart was an open wound, bleeding out constantly. He may not have the ability to see into the mind and soul of a person like Kaled or Bickslow did, but in her, he recognised his own pain, and the pain he had seen in his wife and Layla when they had suffered a loss. More than that though, he saw a beauty and a strength that he had only caught glimpses of in her mother and even in Ganier, and that is what gave him hope that Lucy’s heart could be mended and that she could be saved.

With that thought in mind, Arman Pradesh opened his arms to the broken girl in front of him and welcomed her to Bosco.

. . .

Lucy Heartfilia remembered very little about the man waiting for them at the port in Bosco. Of course, she knew what she had read about him, but her own time with him was pretty much a blur, a hazy series of snapshots in the back of her mind. She remembered his face though, as it had been back then, covered in tears and full of anguish. He looked much better now, much happier, but underneath the warm smile and the twinkling eyes that seemed oddly familiar to her, there was still that sharp edge of suffering. It had clearly been blunted with time and love but it was still there and that filled Lucy with a complicated mix of emotions. On the one hand, she felt a kinship with this man who had clearly lost so much in his life, but on the other hand, it troubled her. She knew that Arman had adopted several children after the passing of his wife and son, she had read articles about their exploits and accomplishments, seen photoshoots of the family at important milestones like when Farron (the eldest son) had become an ambassador at his father’s side or when Kaleb had become the guild master of White Sea, one of Bosco’s most prestigious guilds. If someone who had gained so much love and happiness after such a loss was still in pain, then what hope was there for her?

Of course, when she had joined Fairy Tail she had still felt the pain of losing her mom but she had figured that with enough time and enough love that the loss would fade and she would be able to remember her mother with joy for the time they did get together. Of course, she never got the chance to find out if her theory was sound because then she had suffered yet another loss, before the wound left by her mother could fully close. Looking into the kind man’s eyes before her she was overcome by all of these emotions and she had to fight to stop the tears in her eyes from spilling over.

“Laxus, it’s good to see you,” said Arman with a warm smile on his face and a great big bear hug for Laxus, despite the muscle-bound blond standing a good foot above him, “And you must be Freed. Bickslow’s told me so much about you.” Freed nodded politely to the man and watched curiously how Laxus didn’t even attempt to rebuff the hug, only huffing out an exasperated breath as he was pulled in by the kind man. Then Arman turned from the two men to address Lucy, “Lucy Heartfilia, you look so much like your mother I thought it was her exiting the ship.”

Lucy gave the man a warm but pained smile as she surreptitiously swiped a tear from the corner of her eye, “It’s good to meet you Mr. Pradesh, or re-meet you as the case may be. I don’t know if you remember but I attended your wife’s funeral as a child,” said Lucy as she reached out to shake the man’s hand.

“Please, call me Arman, dear, and of course I remember you! Though you have grown quite a bit since then.” Arman ignored the offered hand and instead pulled the startled blond into a hug just as big and warm as the one he had given Laxus. “We aren’t as formal here as in Fiore, especially with family and that’s what you all are now that you’re here, family.”

Lucy was still tender and bruised from the losses she had suffered but this fatherly, affectionate man almost undid her with his kind words and gestures. Her own father had never held her like this and she hadn’t realized until now exactly what she had been missing out on. And so, after a few seconds of hesitation, she returned the hug gratefully and finally gave up on holding her tears back. This was not ho she had expected her first meeting with the Boscan ambassador to go but seeing what kind of man he was and how much of a mess she was at the moment, she guessed it couldn’t have gone any other (less embarrassing) way.

When Lucy finally pulled back and tried to wipe what she was sure was a truly impressive amount of snot and tears from her face, Arman just looked at her with understanding in his eyes and said, “I’m sure you have all been through a great ordeal and a great amount of pain in past months, but I assure all of you that you are safe here and I will do everything within my power to give you a place to heal your wounds and mend what’s been broken.”

With that, Arman ushered them off of the docks and into a sleek black magic vehicle with tinted windows of the Boscan crest embossed on it hood. Once everyone was situated within the SE vehicle, they were off and Lucy, who was sitting next to Laxus, couldn’t help but be lulled to sleep by the steady motions of the car and the warm atmosphere that Arman provided.


	8. A Letter From Someone Gone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucy waked us in an unfamiliar place and receives a message from those she had been shutting out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, Lucy can start to heal. She definitely isn't suddenly okay and I don't want this chapter to give the wrong impression. She went through something traumatic and it's going to take a long time to recover from that. I don't want to make light of any of the issues I plan on exploring in this Fic (i.e. alcoholism, depression, PTSD) but this chapter is about her taking the first step on the road to recovery now that she is in a safe and loving space with people who understand what she's going through.
> 
> Fairy Tail belongs to Hiro Mashima and The Pradesh Family belongs to Desna1.

When Lucy waded her way out of the bog of sleep, she was in a completely unfamiliar place. It was obviously a bedroom but the bed was drape with colourful silks and a set of glass doors let in a cool breeze that smelled like freshly mown grass and damp earth. Pale morning light streamed through gauzy curtain that floated on the wind and the sound of birds drifted into the room. While the atmosphere here was idyllic, Lucy was disturbed when she threw off the covers and found that she was in a set of silky blue pyjama’s that she did not recognize. However, when she caught sight of the delicate embroidered pattern of stars in silver thread along the hem she recognized the set as one of Virgo’s creation.

Since the battle with Tartaros, Lucy had been keeping her spirits at bay, preventing them from even coming out on her own. Last night, however, she had clearly let her guard down and Virgo must have snuck out to change her clothes without waking her. There was a change of clothes on the vanity at the back of the room, with her keys neatly placed on top of a card of light blue stationary. When Lucy saw this, she froze up, even her heart stopped for a second. She reached out with trembling fingers and slid the note out from under her keys with the least amount of contact possible between her hand and the paper, as if it might burn her. With a shaking breath, Lucy took a seat on the edge of the bed and began to read the neatly scrawled hand of Leo.

_Dear Princess,_

_We know that you have been suffering since losing Aquarius and your guild and frankly we’re all pretty peeved about how they abandoned you. But we have not abandoned you, Princess. We wish you would let us out so that we could help you through this. What happened to Aquarius isn’t your fault, Lucy, and we all just want to be able to help you. We are incredibly grateful to have you as our key holder and friend and seeing you suffer makes us suffer. I know that you might not be ready to see us yet but just know that none of us blame you or think any less of you, quite the opposite actually. We all saw how strong you were that day and we are prouder than ever to call you our Master._

_Yours Forever,_

_Leo the Lion_

It was at this point that the tears Lucy had been holding back poured out, as the handwriting changed in the postscript at the bottom of the page.

**_Hey Brat,_ **

**_I’m still watching you over here and I have to say I’m not impressed. I didn’t give up my key so that you could wallow in pity and self-loathing. I certainly didn’t do it so that you could waste your life away in the gutter. I’m tired of seeing you moping around, get your ass in gear and get back on your feet or I swear to all that is holy I will find a way to come to earthland and kick it for you! I expect you to actually find a boyfriend before you’re sixty so don’t make me watch your pitiful life unfold like this any longer. I knew full well what I was getting into when I told you to summon the celestial spirit King so don’t make me regret it._ **

The last part of the letter wasn’t signed, but it didn’t need to be, Lucy would recognize Aquarius’ sass from a mile away. She clutched the note to her chest and just let the tears continue to fall. She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, dampening her knees with tears, but the sun was certainly a lot higher in the sky by the time she finally managed to pull herself together and get ready for the day. She tucked the note into the pocket closest to her heart and resolved right then and there to make a difference in her life. She still couldn’t really see what the future could possibly hold for her but she was alive today because of Aquarius and so she wasn’t going to waste that life any longer.


End file.
